CHICAGO — The Chicago White Sox staged an Elvis
tribute at U.S. Cellular Field on Friday night, complete with a bunch of people
in bad wigs and fake sideburns, an Elvis impersonator in a cheesy jumpsuit and
some Flying Elvi.

That’s not an Elvis tribute. That’s schlock.

Allow the Rangers to show you how it’s more properly done.

In the process of carving out a 7-4 come-from-behind win, the dog-tired
Rangers effectively staged a passion play on The King’s life and legacy. They
had all the stages represented, from Young Elvis right up to the guy who died 34
years ago this week.

Please, let us explain:

Young Elvis: That part was played by Mitch Moreland, a
native of Amory, Miss., which is just 30 miles up the road from Tupelo, where
Elvis Presley was born and raised.

“Yep, it was the spark to my night,” Moreland joked, “seeing all those
sideburns.”

Moreland, feted with a Christmas parade in his hometown after hitting the key
homer in the Rangers’ lone World Series win, continued his tour de force on the
Rangers’ current 10-game road trip. He rocked the White Sox with a pair of
two-out homers.

Through the first eight games of the 10-game trip, Moreland is 11-for-27
(.407) with three homers and nine RBIs and that’s despite being scratched on
Thursday due to a sore hamstring.

Superstar Elvis: Center fielder Josh Hamilton has the
same flair for the dramatic as The King. After a ball got behind him in the
second for a triple, Hamilton went into the wall to take away extra bases from
Carlos Quentin in the fifth. His collision with the padding was audible and left
Hamilton checking the padded undershirt he wears afterward. He later gave the
thumbs up sign as confirmation he was fine.

“I thought home run,” said reliever Yoshinori Tateyama. “When he got it, I
got very excited.”

And then as soon as he got back into the dugout, Hamilton provided an encore.
Leading off the top of the sixth, he rocketed a Jake Peavy fastball over the
stands in right field to give the Rangers a 5-4 lead.

International appeal: Tateyama is the diminutive
Japanese reliever who wears his own pair of Elvis-ish sideburns, but who has
come up big repeatedly for the Rangers in the second half of the season. He
changed his arm angle over the All-Star break to drop down to more of a
sidearmer. That’s allowed him to elevate pitches when need be and get more
movement on his breaking ball.

For the second time in two weeks he entered a game that was quickly about to
get away from the Rangers and held the opponent at bay. The Rangers have won
both games. Since the break, Tateyama has allowed one run in 18 innings and held
hitters to a .103 average.

Bloated Elvis: The King’s namesake, young Elvis
Andrus, continued his uneven play in the field, looking sloppy and sluggish.
After the Rangers’ fourth-inning comeback, Andrus dropped a throw to second that
would have been an easy out on a force play in the fifth. Instead, the runner,
Gordon Beckham, eventually scored the tying run. It was Andrus’ 25th error of
the season, most by a Rangers shortstop since Royce Clayton made the same number
in 1999.

At least there was reason for the Rangers, well most of them, anyway, to be
sluggish. After Thursday night’s walk-off loss in Los Angeles, the Rangers flew
all night and didn’t arrive at their Chicago hotel until 6 a.m. Friday. All of
them except for starter Matt Harrison, who had flown ahead of the team so he’d
be rested.

Harrison had command problems from the start, then seemed to settle down
after manager Ron Washington came out for one of his colorful pep talks that
worked so well for Derek Holland on the way to a shutout in Toronto two weeks
ago.

Harrison couldn’t respond. He got into trouble by walking the No. 9 hitter to
start the fifth and was gone before the inning ended.

The Rangers, however, were just getting started.

“Of course we were tired,” Washington said. “It’s not so much the physical
part of it, but it just took us a few innings to get in the groove.”

But once they found it, they moved just like Elvis. And left the White Sox
all shook up.

Catch Evan Grant all season on The Ticket (KTCK-AM 1310) at
9:35 a.m. Tuesdays with The Musers and 4:50 p.m. Wednesdays with The
Hardline.

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